BELGRADE, THURSDAY

A BRITISH CHALLENGER II main battle tank, which was sent to spearhead last year’s Ukrainian counter-offensive, has appeared on the now infamous Epstein List of the celebrated and the famous who flew too close to the convicted sex-offender’s orbit than they might subsequently have wished.

The 69-tonne war monster has not been heard of since its arrival in the war-ravaged country. At least one of the 14 such tanks sent by Britain to teach Russia a lesson it will never forget, has already been lost. The remainder are said to be performing an armored SAS-like role in the conflict, although parachute drops have proved problematic.

Recently, the Russians have been reported to be trying to take advantage of a minor, almost negligible, flaw in the otherwise impregnable fighting vehicle, its sloped front armor.

“Yes, it’s a typical shabby Ruski trick,” commented retired Colonel Basil Hermone Fotherington-Smythe, late of the 3rd Underhand Sneaky-Beaky Lancers. “Our tanks were built to fight from cover, you see, and Ivan knows it. In essence, they have limited bollock protection and Moscow is determined to kick us there. Shocking, I know. Are there no depths to which these erstwhile reds won’t sink?”

Colonel Fotherington-Smythe, who now works for the London think tank Armchair General, says he can’t imagine how a British main battle tank would find itself on a list of Jeffrey Epstein’s intimates. “Thought I’d be on it myself for a moment,” he admitted. “Was damn glad the fighting beast was there instead of me. Wouldn’t have been able to explain it to the memsahib. I picked up a taste for young flesh in the Middle East, and the last days of the Raj. East of Suez. As the poem goes … ‘where there ain’t no Ten Commandments’ ….”

British and American battle tanks sent to Ukraine are both said to be suffering difficulties due to the ability of drones to strike a tank in its most intimate and vulnerable parts. Colonel Fotherington-Smyhe believes this may have been a reason for the tank’s appearance on the Epstein List.

“Perhaps the old Challenger knew it going to be going to certain death one day, when it had to face a real army rather than the usual collection of ill-armed and half-trained fuzzies we’ve been used to since the Berlin Wall came down. And it may have sought ill-advised comfort for those lapses of moral fibre, which we are all subject to from time to time, but which can only be atoned for by honorable death on the battlefield, or a firing squad. A few parties with a handful of nubile flibbertigibbets and aspirant masseuses, where’s the real harm, I say? What’s that next to wading through mud in eastern Ukraine waiting for imminent destruction? But don’t quote me on that. The mem still has a ferocious right hook. You know I once saw her kill a Tiger in India with a single swipe. And don’t get me going about how she treated the servants who weren’t up to scratch. Thank God for the Empire.”